Recovery or extraction of bitumen from oil sands, also commonly referred to as tar sands or bituminous sands, is often achieved by a water-based process. Such a process generates tailings, which typically comprises sands, fines, clays, minerals and residual bitumen in water. The tailings are typically transported and stored within surface tailings ponds, where the solids settle out of the tailings and water is released. When deposited in a tailings pond, the fine fraction of the tailings accumulates to form fluid fine tailings, which typically settle in a few years to form mature fine tailings (MFT). The MFT typically behaves as a fluid-like colloidal material and can remain in a fluid-like state for decades due to its slow rate of consolidation. Over the years, large volumes of MFT have been accumulated in the tailings ponds and new tailings ponds are required to store newly generated tailings. It is desirable to accelerate recovery of water trapped in the MFT and conversion of MFT into deposits that would become trafficable and ready for reclamation. For example, the Canadian Energy Resources Conservation Board has issued Directive 074 “Tailings Performance Criteria and Requirements for Oil Sands Mining Schemes”, which requires the deposits converted from fluid tailings including MFT to achieve a minimum undrained shear strength of 5 kPa within one year and 10 kPa after five years such that the deposits can be trafficable.